The Lay of the Band 
again, — when all who want to live, who want to 
write, draw directly upon life’s first sources. To live 
simply, and out of the soil! To live by one’s own 
ploughing, and to write! 
Instead, how do we live? How do I live? Nine 
months in the year by talking bravely about books 
that I have not written. Between times I live on the 
farm, hoe, and think, and write, — whenever the hoe- 
ing is done. And where is my poem to a mouse? 
Its silly wa’s the win’s are strewin ! 
With a whole farm o’ foggage green, and all the 
year before me, I am not sure that I could build a 
single line of genuine poetry. But I am certain that, 
in living close to the fields, we are close to the source 
of true and great poetry, where each of us, at times, 
hears lines that Burns and Wordsworth left unmea- 
sured, —lines that we at least may /zve into song. 
Now, I have done just what my biological friend 
knew I would do, — made over my course of nature- 
study into a pleasant but idle waiting for inspiration. 
I have frankly turned poet! No, not unless Gilbert 
White and Jefferies, Thoreau, Burroughs, Gibson, Tor- 
rey, and Rowland Robinson are poets. But they are 
poets. We all are,— even the biologist, with half a 
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